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The second wave of feminism <script src="http://adserver.adtechus.com/addyn/3.0/5308.1/1371336/0/170/ADTECH;target=_blank;grp=550;key=false;kvqsegs=D:T:2886:1362:1359:1357:1346:1341;kvtopicid=724633;kvchannel=HISTORY;misc=1291082559495"></script> The women’s movement of the 1960s and ’70s, the so-called “second wave” of feminism, represented a seemingly abrupt break with the tranquil suburban life pictured in American popular culture. Yet the roots of the new rebellion were buried in the frustrations of college-educated mothers whose discontent impelled their daughters in a new direction. If first-wave feminists were inspired by the abolition movement, their great-granddaughters were swept into feminism by the civil rights movement, the attendant discussion of principles such as equality and justice, and the revolutionary ferment caused by protests against the Vietnam War. Women’s concerns were on Pres. John F. Kennedy’s agenda even before this public discussion began. In 1961 he created the President’s Commission on the Status of Women and<script src="http://adserver.adtechus.com/addyn/3.0/5308.1/1388674/0/170/ADTECH;target=_blank;grp=550;key=false;kvqsegs=D:T:2886:1362:1359:1357:1346:1341;kvtopicid=724633;kvchannel=HISTORY;misc=1291082559533"></script> appointed Eleanor Roosevelt to lead it. Its report, issued in 1963, firmly supported the nuclear family and preparing women for motherhood. But it also documented a national pattern of employment discrimination, unequal pay, legal inequality, and meagre support services for working women that needed to be corrected through legislative guarantees of equal pay for equal work, equal job opportunities, and expanded child-care services. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 offered the first guarantee, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was amended to bar employers from discriminating on the basis of sex. Some deemed these measures insufficient in a country where classified advertisements still segregated job openings by sex, where state laws restricted women’s access to contraception, and where incidences of rape and domestic violence remained undisclosed. In the late 1960s, then, the notion of a women’s rights movement took root at the same time as the civil rights movement, and women of all ages and circumstances were swept up in debates about gender, discrimination, and the nature of equality.

“All of the adults looked after all of the children. Everybody knew each other. Everybody helped each other.”

Oakwood was special from the beginning. When the 106-home subdivision opened in 1964, it was only the second development in Lexington where African-Americans could buy a new house. The first, St. Martins Village, had opened a few years earlier, about a mile down Georgetown Road.

Oakwood opened the same year that Congress passed landmark civil rights legislation that prohibited housing discrimination. Before that, such discrimination was not only legal but widely practiced.

The Kentucky General Assembly passes the Kentucky Civil Rights Act and Governor Edward T. Breahitt signs it into law on January 27, 1966. The Act prohibits discrimination in employment and public accommodations based on race, national origin, color, and religion. Kentucky becomes the first state in the South pass a civil rights law. It becomes the first in the south to establish enforcement powers over civil rights violations on a state level. The Kentucky Commission on Human Rights becomes the state enforcement authority of the Act.    The Kentucky Commission on Human Rights publishes "Negro Employment in Kentucky State Agencies" in February 1966, tracking for the first time African American employment statistics of the state government workforce. On August 26, 1966, the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights opens an office in Louisville, Ky., to “increase field service activities in the western half of the state, where some 70 percent of Kentucky’s Negroes live,” say state officials.

SSecond Wave Feminism The term 'Second Wave' was coined by Marsha Lear, and refers to the increase in feminist activity which occurred in America, Britain, and Europe from the late sixties onwards. In America, second wave feminism rose out of the Civil Rights and anti-war movements in which women, disillusioned with their second-class status even in the activist environment of student politics, began to band together to contend against discrimination. The tactics employed by Second Wave Feminists varied from highly-published activism, such as the protest against the Miss America beauty contest in 1968, to the establishment of small consciousness-raising groups. However, it was obvious early on that the movement was not a unified one, with differences emerging between black feminism, lesbian feminism, liberal feminism, and social feminism. Second Wave Feminism in Britain was similarly multiple in focus, although it was based more strongly in working-class socialism, as demonstrated by the strike of women workers at the Ford car plant for equal pay in 1968. The slogan 'the personal is political' sums up the way in which Second Wave Feminism did not just strive to extend the range of social opportunities open to women, but also, through intervention within the spheres of reproduction, sexuality and cultural representation, to change their domestic and private lives. Second Wave Feminism did not just make an impact upon western societies, but has also continued to inspire the struggle for women's rights across the world.

Women'S Clubs are voluntary organizations that were originally formed by women who had been denied access to the major institutions of America's democratic civil society.

Working women formed working girls' clubs and small-town women formed civic improvement associations. In bigger cities, women organized citywide and neighborhood women's clubs and women's educational and industrial unions. Ethnic, church-based, African American, and settlement house women's clubs were founded across the country.

Although women continued to belong to literary, social, and charitable clubs, the majority of women's clubs organized after the Civil War had specific civic and political agendas. The specific purposes of each club differed according to the type of club and its stated purpose.